Downtown Emergency Service Center

The Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC) is a non-profit organization in Seattle, Washington providing services for that city's homeless population. The organization was founded to aid men and women living in a state of chronic homelessness who, due to their severe and persistent mental and addictive illnesses, were not being served by the existing shelters of the time. In the 1980s the center was funded by the city of Seattle through block-grant money, the county, which supports mental-health case manager positions, the United Way, churches (providing volunteers), businesses and individual donors. 230 people sleep in the two open rooms.

History

In the late 1970s, Seattle's Downtown Human Service Council Group expressed concern to Seattle's mayor that there were increases in homelessness and that the mentally ill were not getting the services they needed. Because of these concerns, the City of Seattle, the Church Council of Seattle and WAMI (Washington Advocates for the Mentally Ill) partnered to open the center in 1979.